. >> i want to make it absolutely clear to assad and those under his command. the world is watching. the use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable. and if you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences and you will be held accountable. >> president obama this week warned the president of syria, bashar al-assad not to use syria's chemical weapons against his own people. rebel syrians are waging an offensive against other syrians, largely assad's government forces. unnamed u.s. officials say that syria has even gone so far as to load the precursor ingredients of sarin, a deadly nerve gas, into the aerial bombs. whether this activity is to protect the chemicals from advancing rebel forces, or for assad to actually use them against rebel forces, is not clear. as secretary of state hillary clinton points out. >> our concerns are that an increasingly desperate assad regime might turn to chemical weapons or might lose control of them to one of the many groups that are now operating within syria. >> syria automatically